Citizens stage protest against LBOD flooding

Irrigation minister says Rs85b needed to rehabilitate the drain, Centre not assisting

HYDRABAD:

The Left Bank Outfall Drain, a saline water drain, which has won notoriety for flooding many districts of Sindh during torrential monsoon rains, continues to pose the threat of flooding in the ongoing season and Monday residents of Badin protested against it.

Meanwhile, the Sindh government has expressed regret that the federal government is not providing any support to the province in addressing the matter.

Speaking to the media in Mirpurkhas district on Sunday, Sindh Irrigation Minister Suhail Anwar Siyal lamented that the federal government, which had built the faulty drain through the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), was not helping the province.

"The Sindh irrigation department submitted a project proposal [to the Centre] last year for rehabilitating the LBOD at the cost of around Rs85 billion so that six to seven districts of Sindh could be saved from flooding. But, that scheme wasn't approved." However, he praised the Pakistan Peoples Party-led provincial government for approving Rs5b for the current fiscal year so that the expenses for draining saline water in the rural parts of the province could be met.

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"The LBOD was thrust upon us," grumbled the PPP minister. He said Umerkot district and parts of Mirpurkhas district are not connected with the drain and that is another design fault. He added that the irrigation department has been removing weeds and desilting the drain for the last four months.

The first stage of the LBOD was executed from 1984 to 1997 by WAPDA. The project was later handed over to the Sindh irrigation department. The drain sustained damages during the 1994 rains and the cyclone in 1999 damaged the tidal link and Cholri weir which connected the drain to the sea, bringing reverse inflows of the sea water, especially affecting Badin district.

It was designed to sustain up to 125 millimetre rainfall in five days. However, Mirpurkhas received 214mm rain in 2011 and 169mm in 2020 in just 24 hours, causing overtopping of water from the drain. It's designed discharge capacity is 4,400 cusecs.

Protests

Meanwhile, the residents of Badin district held a protest on Monday in the Kaloi area and expressed fear that the weak embankments of LBOD are likely to cause rain-triggered flooding in their area again this year. "The levy gets ruptured at several locations and water overflowing from the drain floods the surrounding areas," claimed Ramzan Loond, a local resident. According to him, tens of thousands of people were displaced due to flooding caused by the drain last year.

"We also fear that thousands of acres of our cultivated farmland will be destroyed." The protesters alleged that the contractors assigned the work of desilting and clearing weeds from Reduced Distance (RD) 212 to RD 320 against a Rs7b contract were embezzling public funds instead of genuinely carrying out their work.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2021.